Creativity must represent something different, new, or innovative. It has to be different and also be appropriate to the task at hand. The first chapter of the book deals with the Four-Criterion Construct of Creativity, which attempts to integrate both Western and Eastern conceptions of creativity. This is followed by a chapter which addresses how creativity operates on individual and social/environmental levels, and the effects and outcomes of the creative mind. Chapter 3 discusses the structure of creativity. A key work on creative domains is that of Carson, Peterson, and Higgins, who devised the creativity achievement questionnaire (CAQ) to assess 10 domains. The fourth chapter discusses measures of creativity and divergent thinking tests, Torrance Tests, Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPOC) and Finke Creative Invention Task. Some popular personality measures use different theories, such as Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire, which looks at extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism. Chapter 6 focuses on a key issue, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and their relationship to creativity. While the seventh chapter deals with the relationship between creativity and intelligence, the eighth chapter describes three ’classic’ studies of creativity and mental illness which focus on the connection between bipolar disorder and creativity, usage of structured interviews and utilization of historiometric technique. One school admissions area that already uses creativity is gifted admissions—which students are chosen to enter gifted classes, programs, or after-school activities. The book also talks about creative perceptions and dwells upon the question whether creativity is good or bad.

This book presents the best short introduction to genius to be found. It is a valuable resource for all students of psychology and anyone interested in the field. The book examines the many definitions of “genius”, and the multiple domains in which it appears, including art, science, music, business, literature, and the media. The term genius is peculiar. It can be precisely defined or loosely defined. It can be applied to a diversity of phenomena or confined to just one or two. It all depends on how you use the term. The tremendous range in usage reflects the fact that genius is both a humanistic concept with a long history and a scientific concept with a much shorter history. There are two principal ways to assess degrees of genius. One is historiometric, and the other is psychometric. Whatever the actual association between historiometric and psychometric genius, we have a strong inclination to associate the two concepts. This connection was demonstrated in a recent survey of college students at both U.S. and Canadian universities. The book also examines three alternative positions on the nature of cognitive ability: unified intellect, diverse intellects and hierarchical intellect. Whether intelligence is unified or multiple, all budding geniuses must go through some sort of apprenticeship period in which they acquire the expertise that will enable them to make original and exemplary contributions to their chosen domain of achievement. The book further explains what psychologists have said about problem-solving research in cognitive psychology.

This book explores a set of key topics that have shaped research and given us a much better understanding of how language processing works. The study of language involves examining sounds, structure, and meaning, and the book covers the aspects of language in each of these areas that are most relevant to psycholinguistics. The book then covers relatively low-tech methods that simply involve pencil and paper as well as very high-tech methods like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that use advanced technology to determine brain activity in response to language and discusses a topic that has dominated the field for over two decades how people handle ambiguity in language. It describes how language is represented, both in the brain itself and in how multiple languages interact, which parts of the brain are critical for the basics of language, and how language ability can be disrupted when the brain is damaged. The book further talks about progressive language disorders like semantic dementia and what the study of disordered language can tell us about the neurological basis of language. Finally, it looks at sign language research to see if and how sign language processing differs from speech and a relatively new hypothesis that has emerged: most previous work has taken for granted that comprehenders (and speakers) fully process language, that is that we try to build complete representations of what we hear, read, or produce.

The purpose of this book is to dispel many of the myths about the gifted, define the term in a nonelitist manner, explore how it manifests in individuals, describe why it is important, consider its origins, examine its psychological implications, and provide guidelines for its recognition, assessment, and development. It provides a cohesive conception of the psychology and development of a group with special needs. This perspective was shaped through 50 years of concentrated study and is informed by the author’s experience as a teacher of gifted elementary students, a counselor of gifted adolescents, a teacher educator of graduate students in gifted education, a psychologist specializing in the assessment of giftedness, a clinician with gifted clients, the creator of a refereed psychological journal on adult giftedness, and a researcher. In humanistic psychology, optimal development has been conceptualized differently. Self-realization can be understood in terms of Maslow’s self-actualization, Dabrowski’s secondary integration, Jung’s individuation, or other theoretical perspectives of human development. Families, educators, and psychologists can support inner development or they can act as agents of socialization, exhorting the gifted to "work harder" to attain external trappings of success.

This book is intended to provide to the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) clinician advanced tools to treat children with complex trauma, attachment wounds, and dissociative tendencies. It covers key elements to develop case conceptualization skills and treatment plans based on the adaptive information processing (AIP) model. A broader perspective is presented by integrating concepts from attachment theory, affect regulation theory, affective neuroscience, and interpersonal neurobiology. These concepts and theories not only support the AIP model, but they expand clinicians’ understanding and effectiveness when working with dissociative, insecurely attached, and dysregulated children. The book presents aspects of our current understanding of how our biological apparatus is orchestrated, how its appropriate development is thwarted when early, chronic, and pervasive trauma and adversity are present in our lives, and how healing can be promoted through the use of EMDR therapy. In addition, it provides a practical guide to the use of EMDR within a systemic framework. It illustrates how EMDR therapy can be used to help caregivers develop psychobiological attunement and synchrony as well as to enhance their mentalizing capacities. Another important goal of the book is to bring strategies from other therapeutic approaches, such as play therapy, sand tray therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Theraplay, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) into a comprehensive EMDR treatment, while maintaining appropriate adherence to the AIP model and EMDR methodology. This is done with the goal of enriching the work that often times is necessary with complexly traumatized children and their families.

This book is about all the exciting aspects that have been investigated in the science of positive psychology. One of the reasons that the interest in positive psychology has increased so much in recent years is that people are interested in happiness, and they’re interested in enhancing their well-being. All conceptions of positive psychology involve something to do with the “positive side of life”, which is clearly contrasted with the negative side of life. The positive side of life seems to go by many names, such as happiness, flourishing, thriving, a worthwhile life, a meaningful life, a fulfilling life, or “what goes right in life”. The study of positive subjective states involves two related but distinct areas of study: positive emotions and subjective well-being (SWB). Positive psychologists often refer to two types of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Any treatments of the history of happiness spend little time on ancient Jewish contributions to our understanding of well-being. From the early Christian tradition, writers encouraged enduring suffering now in the light of future happiness in the afterlife. The book focuses on two theories that are both representative and helpful to the field of positive psychology: the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and the Hedonic Adaptation Prevention (HAP) model. Gratitude and compassion are very important to the good life; however, when we also emphasize strengths such as prudence, humility, self-control, and integrity, we are much more likely to flourish. The issue of Internet relationships also brings up an alternative form of relationships: Our relationships with our pets. The book attempts to describe the cognitive characteristics of happy people.

Adolescence is an extremely unique and critical stage of development. In order to provide the helping professional with a clear understanding of typical adolescent development, and to fill the gap many have in understanding adolescence in general, this book offers a concise, in-depth, scientific overview of adolescent development specifically geared toward those applying the information in the helping professions. The intended audience for the book is helping professionals such as psychologists, mental health counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, educators, and nurses. The book covers adolescent developmental theories that provide a basis for understanding observations about the nature of adolescents. These theories include the intrapsychic, cognitive, behavioral/environmental, and biological theories. Puberty is also the signal indicating the beginning of physical and neurological growth. The hormonal changes of puberty initiate drastic growth in the body and organs of adolescents. The book reviews several aspects of overall adolescent health, including the issue of adolescent sleep and its importance and how adolescent diet and nutrition impact development. In addition to the “hardware” transformation in an adolescent’s brain, adolescents undergo important changes in their ability to think. The book also examines Piaget’s adolescent stage of cognitive development, the formal operational stage, and how changes in the way adolescents think impact their interactions with others. It introduces the multiple social changes with family and friends that occur during adolescence and examines how adolescents interact with TV, media, and technology and deals with the issue of cyberbullying and reviews the most common adolescent problems, such as drug use, risky behaviors, eating issues, and depression. Each chapter integrates several features to guide helping professionals in applying adolescent development in practice.

This book deals with evidence-based mental health and learning interventions for children and adolescents, and provides guidance on implementation in practice. It is a compendium of proven treatment strategies for resolving more than 40 of the most pressing and prevalent issues facing young people, and provides immediate guidance and uniform step-by-step instructions for resolving issues ranging from psychopathological disorders to academic problems, and is of relevance for both school-based and clinically-based practice. Issues covered include crisis interventions and response, social and emotional issues, academic/learning issues, psychopathological disorders, neuropsychological disorders, and the behavioral management of childhood health issues. The book covers several fields of study including applied settings, school crises, natural disasters, school violence, suicidal behavior, childhood grief, reading disabilities, math disabilities, written-language disorders, homework compliance, anger and aggression, bullying, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Each chapter follows a consistent format including a brief description of the problem and associated characteristics, etiology and contributing factors, and three evidence-based, step-by-step sets of instructions for implementation. Additionally, each chapter provides several websites offering further information about the topic.

The importance of the field of geropsychology (psychology of aging) is seen in the ever-increasing demographics of older adults. A psychologist needs to understand the various life stages that define different cohorts of older adults. Older adults are affected by the forces of stigma and ageism, which are of four types: personal, institutional, intentional, and unintentional. A majority of older adults experience age discrimination and stigmatization after the age of 65. The use of medical model of psychopathology causes contradictions and distortions, one of which is the use of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Assessment of deficits in olfactory functioning are potentially useful for a psychologist who is attempting to differentiate between cognitive disturbances of normal aging and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Sexual interest remains high throughout old adult developmental stages, but sexual activity declines in most men as they age. While older adults are more likely to avoid illicit substances, many older adults having chronic pain from cancer or arthritis need opioid medications. Older adult abuse is a multifactorial phenomenon as the abuse may be emotional, financial, physical, sexual, or self-induced. Environmental geropsychology is based on Lewin’s field theory model Lawton and Nahemow’s ecological model, and an environmental geropsychologist focuses on the environmental component to develop interventions to change older adults’ interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences. Heightened awareness of coming of death results in an existential crisis for many older adults causing a loss of their sense of purpose for their lives.

This book provides us with what we need to sleep well. It provides the tools and techniques to reverse insomnia and improve sleep long-term. Insomnia, persistent trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, affects our daytime functioning and wellbeing. The book breaks down the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), the sleep program considered first-line treatment in the clinic, into a step-by-step and reader friendly program that can be easily followed at home. Written by a clinical psychologist and researcher who has worked in the sleep field for 40 years, the book uses data from a real patient to illustrate each step of the process. The book is complete with detailed sleep diaries, worksheets, and more, all of which are also available online to download and use on your own journey to sleeping better now and into the future. Guiding readers through this self-directed sleep therapy program, the book features updated information and new scientific findings on key topics for patients and health care providers including: tried-and-true CBT-I methods of sleep management; successful cognitive therapy methods to deal with racing thoughts at bedtime; different sleep needs for women and men through life and health conditions; influence of nutrition, exercise, and sex on sleep in a brand-new chapter; depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress and how they intersect with sleep; and prescribed and non-prescribed medications, herbal remedies, and cannabis for sleep.

Depression, often referred to as the “common cold of psychopathology”, is among the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, yet it remains challenging to understand and treat. Experience such as the difficulty of continuing on with one’s typical routine, desires, and goals that differentiate more normal experiences of sadness and malaise from syndromes of depression drive people to seek treatment for these conditions. This book provides an overview of all aspects of unipolar and bipolar depressive disorders, including their presentation, course, impact on functioning, etiology, and treatment. It integrates recent research on risk factors for these conditions and biological underpinnings of depression and mania alongside well-established observations regarding the phenomenology and correlates of these conditions. The book explicitly integrates models of depression such as the diathesis-stress model and vulnerability model, across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The book shows how such major psychology disciplines as clinical, developmental, evolutionary, personality, and behavioral neuroscience shed light on the causes, risk factors, and treatment options for the full spectrum of depressive disorders. It describes what is known about the kinds of stress that seem to be most relevant to depressive disorders; how this stress may exert its effects; and other factors that may help to explain individual differences in the stress-depression relationship. Cultural and gender as variables are examined as is depression across the lifespan. In addition, the book clarifies common misconceptions about depression and mood disorders, and considers how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) affects diagnostic practice.

This book concerns itself with the research on how media influences people, how people influence media, and how society even influences the way we try to answer questions about how media influences people. The history of media and society has often involved considerable push and pull between social forces advocating greater liberalization or restriction of media content. After a brief introduction about society and media through history, the book discusses some of the basic theoretical approaches used in media research such as the uses and gratifications theory (UGT), self-determination theory (SDT), and catalyst model. This is followed by a presentation on how influential are advertisements on our behavior, what “tricks” do advertisers use to influence behavior, and how do the influences of advertisements compare to fictional media. The impact of televisions, or boob tubes as they were called earlier, on academic achievement is the next topic of discussion. This is followed by a chapter covering media addiction. Regarding television, relatively little attention has been paid to the concept of television addiction despite the heavy viewing habits of the average individual. Book bannings and burnings have long been part of authoritarian regimes, whether aristocratic, fascist, or communist. Book bannings are intended to prevent others from reading a book. The book also discusses many other important topics such as body dissastisfaction, teen sexual behavior, racial relations, criminal news, television/movie/video game violence, and pornography. As with most issues with media psychology, the travails of social media involve separating the hype from the truth.

This book helps in understanding motivation from a perspective of basic knowledge, provides a bit of the schema set that a motivation researcher brings to these situations and offers some guidance in one or more motivational models. Chapter 1 begins with a global definition of motivation. Motivation is not a learning theory, but it affects what people learn. The second chapter talks about topics related to incentives, rewards, reinforcers, and punishers using the operant-conditioning framework. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a large-scale model for motivation, and allows for the discussion of social development, individual differences, and cultural factors that can assist or impede a person’s progress. Needs can be thought of as arising from three categories: physiological, psychological and social needs. The sheer “motivation” for paying attention in class and working on material in class concerning physiological needs is impressive. Individuals have beliefs and judgments about their ability to successfully complete an activity or task, which can be termed as expectations. Additionally, people also have a value system associated with the expectation. Goals are important and goal setting is crucial for moving forward. Long-term goals are better suited for increasing intrinsic motivation. Chapter 7 describes several focused theories within the thematic concept of self-evaluation or self-judgment. Positive psychology falls within the perspective of humanism but focuses on testing ideas. Optimism has been viewed as a cognitive characteristic with an emotional component to it.

This book is a comprehensive assessment of the school-to-prison pipeline and is intended for stakeholders, advocates, researchers, policy makers, educators, and students. It explains the serious problems that strict school discipline and tough-on-crime juvenile court policies have wrought on many students, disproportionately impacting some of our most vulnerable children and adolescents. The criminalization of education and school settings, along with fewer rehabilitative alternatives within the juvenile courts, has created the pipeline and also made the problems significantly worse. The book is unique in both its breadth of coverage and incorporation of empirical knowledge from the fields of education, juvenile justice/criminology, sociology/social work, and psychology to synthesize the impact and possible solutions to the entrenched school-to-prison pipeline. It explains that although there was a crossover impact between these two child- and adolescent caring systems, the punitive movements were both independent and interdependent. The increased use of zero-tolerance policies and police in the schools has exponentially increased arrests and referrals to the juvenile courts. Similarly, in the juvenile justice system, a movement toward harsher penalties and a tough-on-crime approach more than doubled the number of adolescents adjudicated delinquent and brought under court supervision. The book presents the common risk factors that make it more likely for students to be involved in punitive school and juvenile court systems. It explores who is disproportionately involved and why this may be occurring for the following child and adolescent groups: impoverished families; those of color; trauma and maltreatment victims; those with special education disabilities; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT).

This book on child and adolescent dissociation provides the reader with a window into the fractured minds of traumatized children and adolescents and offers an effective pathway toward healing. It delves into the inner workings of vulnerable children’s use of dissociation. An in-depth discussion of the Star Theoretical Model (STM), an inclusive theoretical model that examines five intersecting theories attachment, neurobiology, developmental theory, family systems, and dissociation provides a solid foundation for understanding how and why children dissociate and also a road map to guide traumatized children toward successful recovery. One of the chapters deals with 16 warning signs such as auditory hallucinations which are suggestive of dissociation in children and adolescents. Familiarity with the warning signs can enhance proper evaluation for dissociation so that children can receive appropriate treatment and care. The Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES) is a commonly used checklist to assess for dissociative symptoms. A phase-oriented treatment model specifically designed for dissociative children will help them develop integrative functions. Another chapter focuses on helping children to further develop their skills in self-reflection, mindfulness, and somatic awareness, along with managing traumatic triggers and learning to calm down the overactive stress-response system. The book also deals with creative art therapy interventions for adolescents with dissociation and integrating dissociative treatment and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) therapy with children with trauma and dissociation.

A concise, reader-friendly introduction to an important but often underappreciated topic in modern psychology, this book explains the role of comedy, jokes, and wit in the sciences and discusses why they are so important to understand. The author draws from his personal experiences in stand-up comedy to focus on how humor can regulate emotion, reduce anxiety and defuse tense situations, expose pretensions, build personal relationships, and much more. He irreverently debunks the pseudoscience on the topic of humor and leaves readers not only funnier, but better informed. Chapter 1 provides some ways to classify jokes into categories, discusses some theories about what makes something funny, and gets into the caveats about why this work can be so difficult. Comedy alters mood, thought, stress, and pain. Jokes and laughter may play an important role in health, mental illness, marital bliss, education, and psychotherapy. The second chapter discusses the social psychology of humor, and looks at how the presence of other people can make things seem funnier. Folks in both education and business often turn to humor in an attempt to captivate, inform, and persuade. A close look at the research on immune function, allergies, erectile dysfunction, and longevity reveals some promise for laughter’s health benefits. Research offers more support for humor’s impact on psychological well-being than on physical health. Humor can have direct effects on physical health and psychological well-being; it can buffer folks against the slings and arrows of daily hassles.

Personality psychology concerns the nature of human nature and tells us how a person will act in different situations and why. This book tells the story about the differences and similarities between people, and the causes and consequences of these differences. It commences with a note on the salient psychological theories of personality. During the mid-20th century, behaviorism emerged as a dominant paradigm for understanding human behavior, including personality. Although the social cognitive theory of personality has its origins in the radical behaviorist tradition, it emerged in clear opposition to it. Causal theories of personality deal with the question of why people differ in various ways. Behavioral genetics, an area of psychology concerned with the assessment of the relative contribution of genetic and nongenetic influences on various individual variables of difference, including personality, intelligence, and psychological disorders, is also outlined. Psychologists believe people can measure personality using reliable scientific tools. There has been an increased interest in alternative methods for objectively assessing personality. One compelling example is the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The book also shows how personality influences what is traditionally seen as social and cultural phenomena, such as political attitudes and religious beliefs, and prosocial and antisocial behavior. According to research, the most important personality correlates of prosocial behavior are extraversion and agreeableness. The book concludes with a note on the implications of using personality inventories in the context of identifying bad or problematic traits, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, and online personality profiling in the context of consumer behavior.

Obesity research has recently shifted from focusing purely on individual causes to viewing individuals within their “obesogenic” or living environments. This book combines current research from multiple perspectives to provide an introductory-level, reader-friendly overview of the history, causes, prevalence, consequences, treatments, and future trends in the prevention of obesity. It integrates research from a vast range of disciplines in the biological and social sciences, as well as education and economics. It explores the gamut of current treatments for obesity, in addition to prevention programs in schools, the workplace, the community, and the arena of public policy, and offers an assessment of their efficacy. Since obesity is a burgeoning problem in the developing world, as well as having already reached epidemic proportions in many developed nations, the book also discusses international trends. By far, the most common definition of obesity uses the body mass index (BMI) to determine who is overweight or obese. The genetic causes of obesity are often separated into to two types: monogenic and polygenic. After discussing the psychosocial and medical correlates and consequences of obesity, the book looks at the current treatments for obesity such as self-initiated diets, lifestyle modification and medical treatment including surgery. Positive effects on physical activity are encouraging because developing good habits early may help prevent obesity later in life.

The book covers both theories and data, and provides a comprehensive grounding in the psychology of love. The basic thesis of the book is that scientific research can help us all in our loving relationships. Consequently, the book talks not only about theory and data, but also about how to apply them to our close relationships. One chapter provides questions and answers about loving relationships, based on scientific research. Another chapter discusses online dating and the issue of just what we can expect when we meet people online. The complete “Triangular Love Scale” is presented in the book and will enable you to analyze in some detail the levels of intimacy, passion, and commitment in your relationships. The scale, based on psychological theory and validated using large numbers of participants, will show you how psychologists not only construct theories, but also translate these theories into measures that can assess scientifically the phenomena they study. The book considers most of the standard topics in the psychology of love, covering research primarily about heterosexual but also about gay couples. It describes different kinds of love, including the kinds that are more likely to lead to relationship success and also the kinds associated with relationship failure. It specifically discusses factors that lead to greater or lesser success, as well as personality variables and their associations with different kinds of love. While the book focuses mainly on romantic love, it also covers other aspects of love, such as parental love and friendship.

Contemporary research has found that memory is much more than the process for recalling information that has been learned and retained. Memory is central to all human endeavors. Memory is the sine qua non of human psychology. How humans process, store, retrieve, and use memory is intrinsically interesting. This book is about human memory: how it works, how it sometimes does not work, why it is important, and why it is interesting. It describes the major structural and functional theories that guide our understanding of memory. The modal model has three memory buffers: sensory information store, short-term memory and long-term memory. The book focuses on everyday functions of memory, including memorizing things, remembering to do things (prospective memory), and recalling how to do things, such as skills, procedures, and navigation. Disorders of memory including Alzheimer’s and amnesia are examined along with exceptional memory skills, such as the phenomenon of individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory. The book also addresses the intriguing and controversial topics of repressed and recovered memories, the validity of memory in courtroom testimony, and the effects of remembering traumatic events.

This book provides a highly accessible introduction to the many facets of human intelligence, with careful presentation of the wide range of theories and perspectives. Written by a team of renowned scholars, it discusses the long history of the study of intelligence, which in many ways parallels the founding and growth of psychology itself. Structure of Intellect (SOI) model represents a very different approach to theories of intelligence. Recent technological advances have encouraged explorations into the relationship between brain function and specific types of cognitive functioning. The book differentiates intelligence and related constructs such as creativity and intellectual giftedness, which helps people to better understand each construct. Sternberg proposed a way to classify the various approaches to studying the intelligence-creativity relationship. The exponentially increasing development of technology will continue to influence both research and interventions involving intelligence. Neurological studies of intelligence that were in the realm of science fiction only a generation ago have become commonplace. Brain imaging studies are also becoming more relevant to intelligence research. Improvements in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology, which uses superconducting magnets and radio waves to create 3-D images of the brain, will help future researchers look at the morphology of distinct brain regions and systems, and possibly come to firm conclusions about the relationship between the size or function of distinct brain regions and differences in intelligent human behavior.

With Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment, children can overcome their low self-esteem; control their impulses; modify their behaviors in school; change their relationships with peers, teachers, and family members; organize their lives; and, essentially, change their low opinions of themselves. This book focuses on providing advanced training and support for therapists to be successful in using EMDR with child clients, and documents a standardized protocol for using EMDR with children for training and research purposes. It begins with a review of Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) theory applied to EMDR with children and an abbreviated review of research on using EMDR with child clients. The second chapter explains how to get started using EMDR, before describing the steps in the EMDR protocol in case conceptualization with child clients. Six other chapters explain the goals for the specific phases of the EMDR protocol, with directions for each session, instructions for the therapist, and finally, a script for therapists to use with child clients. The phases include discussions on case conceptualization, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan and closure, and reevaluation. The Assessment Phase of EMDR therapy includes specific procedural steps including distilling the core belief schema including negative cognition (NC) and positive cognition (PC). Additional chapters describe advanced management skills for using EMDR with special populations and explore cognitive interweaves (CI) to help the therapist when the child/teen experiences blocked processing.

This book focuses solely on the modern period and begins in 1927. The aim is to orient the reader to continuing themes in the field and to also point any future historian to unresolved historical questions as these appear. The accounts of the development of the coalition of theory and practice, an account of some of the effects of psychology on society is presented via the account of a fictional family the Blacks whose several generations were impacted by the development of psychology from the 1920s. In 1920, in America, psychology was dominated by two main currents. The first was a tendency to reduce life to habit, and the second was to establish differences between humans by test. Within psychiatry, psychology had long had allies, and during the 1930s some powerful ones became associated with psychology and supported its aims to develop a parallel nonmedical psychotherapy system. The year 1945 saw the culmination of many developments in psychology since the 1920s, which led to two major coalitions being formed. The first of these was represented in the reorganization of the American Psychological Association (APA). The 1950s, in American society as well as psychology, were characterized by two pairs of opposites: liberty versus repression and conformity versus creativity. The 1960s were brought to the United States on television. In the 1980s, the APA added a division of clinical neuropsychology, another specialty area where the advances in both cognitive and brain studies translated into an acceptable medical support occupation for psychologists. The Big 5 Personality Theory began to gather wide recognition in the 1990s. Positive psychology promised an opportunity to focus study on some important and neglected aspects of human life.

This book focuses on the practice of child psychotherapy, the theories and treatment practice. The book is divided into three parts. The first part dwells on the need for developmentally grounded child psychotherapy. It explores theories of human development, also referred to as developmental psychology and educational theory in order to understand how children are challenged to learn, and reviews theories that speculate how love and our earliest relationships impact health and well-being. Part II assimilates the developmental theory into the pragmatics of child psychotherapy. It discusses the pragmatics of providing child psychotherapy with considerations for therapists, focuses on the legal and ethical challenges that arise when providing child psychotherapy, and reviews the types of assessment tools that cover all phases of development, including emotional, social, developmental, educational, and psychological. The third part presents the best practices in child psychotherapy. Here, models of evidence-based practice in child psychotherapy are reviewed with examples of what each model offers to the treatment process. These theories also describe what the therapist brings to psychotherapy based on the therapist’s belief of what therapy looks like and the therapist’s role in the relationship with the client. One of the chapters guides the therapist through case conceptualization that integrates the most efficacious treatment interventions into the eight-phase template of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Basic issues such as sleeping, feeding, emotional dysregulation, and learning issues are also discussed with common responses and references to provide to parents through a developmentally grounded practice.

This manual distills simple and practical ways to employ eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy scripted protocols and forms to effectively utilize the entire EMDR therapy eight-phased treatment with infants, toddlers, young children, preteens, and teens from a developmental perspective. It provides step-by-step directions, session protocols, scripts, and forms for each phase of the protocol, along with instructions for integrating techniques and tools from play, art, sand tray, and other helpful therapies. The various phases of EMDR therapy are: case conceptualization, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure and reevaluation. A therapist can use a cognitive interweaves (CI) when reprocessing is blocked, when the child/teen is looping, when time is running out, or when it is necessary to expedite the session so that the client does not remain in a highly activated state. Resource development and installation (RDI) is used when the child/teen does not appear to have adequate tolerance to use EMDR therapy; bilateral stimulation (BLS) is used to install the resource. Mapping and graphing tools help to organize the EMDR therapy, especially with children, and can be integrated into the eight-phases of treatment. While using a fidelity questionnaire, a therapist can monitor his or her own adherence to the phases in order to improve practice and prevent therapist drift, application of a blocking beliefs questionnaire is used to discern the blocking beliefs of children and adolescents.

Psychological trauma can occur when a person experiences an extreme stressor that negatively affects his or her emotional or physical well-being. This book encompasses theories, diagnosis, and treatment as well as how trauma affects family members and caregivers. It also addresses the variables of gender, race/ethnicity, and culture as they bear on trauma psychology and the potential health consequences of trauma. In addition, the book illuminates controversies in the field and such emerging topics as posttraumatic growth (PTG), multiple traumas, and how traumatic events affect communities. A person could be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) only if he or she experienced a criterion A stressor, which comprises two components: the person experienced, witnessed events that involved actual threatened death/serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self/others, and the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Given the serious often life-threatening conditions that trauma survivors often have, an adequate health care system response is perhaps the most pressing need of survivors of traumatic events. Children of parents with PTSD often describe damaged, preoccupied parents who are emotionally limited. Self-care is critical when someone works with clients or patients who have experienced trauma. Burnout is possible, as are compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress. Evidence-based treatments for PTSD can be cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) interventions, such as prolonged exposure therapy, cognitive processing therapy (CPT), and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). The book also deals with alternative medicine treatments such as meditation and dance therapy and movement.

This book for undergraduate courses teaches students to apply critical thinking skills across all academic disciplines by examining popular pseudoscientific claims through a multidisciplinary lens. It discusses the need for critical thinking, describes pseudoscience, and illustrates some of the common mistakes made in pseudoscientific thinking. Understanding the principles of critical thinking is an essential foundation for making rational decisions, and the basic principles are easy enough to remember and implement when possible. The book also focuses on how the human brain does not process information in a rational, logical fashion and instead is rife with natural biases, and exposes many of the social factors that come into play that prevent one from gaining an unbiased, critical perspective on information. Sensationalist stories gain traction via our confirmation bias, and our cognitive dissonance, not being able to reconcile the complicated version of events with the sensationalist one results in the backfire effect, in which people double down on existing beliefs. The book further discusses alien visitation and abduction and examines two areas where alternative medicine is prevalent—physical health (chiropractic treatment, acupuncture) and mental health (e.g., facilitated communication for autism and sensory integration therapy). Finally, the book takes a look at how religion and culture impact science and vice versa, using the narrative of the “culture wars” surrounding topics such as heliocentrism, the theory of evolution via natural selection, and climate change.

This book attempts to build students’ understanding of policy development through a critical analysis and review of policy frameworks, and the policy implementation process. The book is organized into four parts comprising twenty-one chapters. Part one of this book lays out a background as to the current and future demographic trends of older adults and makes the case for the reader that there are a variety of philosophical, political, economic, and social factors that affect public policy development. The chapters help the reader to explore a range of perspectives that define, shape, and impact the development and implementation of public policy. It intends to prepare the reader to critically analyze public policies related to aging. Part two provides an overview to major federal policies and programs that impact older adults and people with disabilities. It examines some historical developments leading up to the actual development and implementation of the policies. Policies include social security, medicare, the Older Americans Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Community Mental Health Centers Act, and Freedom Initiative. The last part of the book outlines specific programmatic areas that flow from aging policies, and specific components that flow from federally mandated policies. Each chapter contains same basic outline: an overview of the programs, specific features and strengths of the programs, gaps and areas for development, and challenges for the future.